I suppose there is every other pinball club on here why not a Fathom club.
Show what you got and share your stories.
Well suppose I might as well expand these to owners threads to restoration and technical threads as well for every

Heres some pics of mine.
Its not restored yet but shopped, cleaned and waxed for the moment.061.JPG062.JPG063.JPG053.JPG054.JPG055.JPG

Ive bought 3 of these over the last 3-5 years, the first one i got at a good price got it working and was offered over $1000 more than i paid for it so i sold it.
i got this one about a year ago finaly again, They dont come up alot or for the right price but they arent unabtainable This one is never leaving my collection took me 3.5 years to get it esp the price i got it for.
then a month after this one i got another for a restore or a customer.
They are out there but you need to be willing to get it fast and be willing to travel a bit. I did regret selling the first one but in the end this one i have now is nicer than the first one.

Snaroff,
Very nice Fathom, mine has a pretty nice original cabinet but i plan to repaint it i want to add a few colors some highlighting airbrushing and pearls to make mine realy pop.
Im currently working on a centaur for a customer that will be the first cabinet restoration with automotive pearls and airbrushing, @$100 a quart its hurting the pocketbook a bit lol. and fathom will need 7 colors.

Yeah i got lucky on this Fathom i have now unsure of the past but bet it wasnt played since the 80s it was filthy as hell but once i cleaned it up it is in actualy pretty nice condition. it had alot of parts stripped off such as popbumpers, slingshots, flipper mechs etc but still a very nice original example. needs a backglass yet. but cabinet is very nice mine just needed vacuuming and cleaning as well.
The Centaur 2 I own well has a pretty nice original PF yellowed of coarse cabinet is pretty decent but when i restore it I will convert it to a Centaur 1 .
The Centaur 1 im restoring well the whole machine is pretty trashed including the cabinet lol but it has a nice backglass at least. lol.

I love most all the post Xenon Ballys until about 1982. Fathom is prolly arguably the most beautiful of them.
but they machines between these years had completely different gameplays thinking outside of the box, cool themes and prolly the nicest art of all time. they are realy nice if you have the whole set im working on obtaining most of them in this period.
I think Flash Gordon will be the last one i need yet since i made a deal to sell mine when its restored.

These are prolly fighting words but williams seemed to make black knight and a bunch of knock offs after in this era either way they look like cheap kid machines next to these Ballys, and well Gotteliebs they just cant seem to compare in my opinion like it or not thats how i feel about it lol.

Heres some more pics for promojoe he asked to see the leds in the backbox. i went with the new cointaker warm white frosted leds. they are not a true warm white anymore they are a natural white instead they look nicer with the blue blackglass.
I tried smd super on the bally backglasses but they are too spotty i like the new cointaker frosted better for even lighting.
Also some pics inside the backbox the driver and light board are just being run in for a customers machine atm i still havnt gotten around to building a new boardset for this machine yet003.JPG005.JPG

Im going to add a few more bulbs to my backbox as well esp along the bottom the green coral, star fish etc on the bottom would look alot nicer with extra illumination. The tail bothers me as well.

The machine looks great HPR I am going to do the same on my machine I have the insert decals its just a matter of the time to do it. i detest the cracked inserts lol.
Did you get all your mech parts replated?
Where dod you get the replacement power supply plate decal?

Terrible Im getting sad seeing everyone machines all sexy and restored and i can even fathom when Ill have a chance to restore mine.

All the green ground jumpers go in the lower cabinet the 4 playfield mounting hinges should each have one to the ground braid some goto the leg bolt brackets if not ground braided and to the 2 will be used to ground the sided rails from the front carriage bolts to the ground braid and also another one or 2 to ground the coin door and lockdown bar, and one more from the ground braid to the metal switch plate.
Basicly leags and anything metal in the lower cabinet gets grounded together to the ground braid. I dont know how much these would affect gameplay as much as potentialy shock a person if not installed and the player becouse a ground bridge. You might want to check the ground brade though and make sure the backbox is grounded to the lower cabinet.

You did realy good $200 for any fathom is a deal

Do you have any pics?

Clodbuster i have a new playfield comming for mine i might be able to help you out with a better playfield or i can restore it for you first.

Heres mine currently.016.JPG

Its in rather nice shape I planned on restoring it I have the insert decals etc but then i bought a new CPR so ill be selling this one. Just a matter of when i get around to swapping it out.

I might have a few extra playfield parts let me guess you dont have any of the ball gates? that might hurt.

I do have an extra wide ball gate that goes on top of the playfield above the lane guides .

I got my long awaited upgrade in the mail from CPR last week.
Look at the difference in colors compared to the old one.
now comes the wait for the playfield to cure several months then i can sand & eliminate the wood outlines then re-clear. cant wait

I also have new plastics, posts, sockets, drop targets, bumper caps and switches etc

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Well since the thread has gone slightly off topic lol suppose Ide have to argue a bit about FG being the best 1 ball pin of all time lol. I personaly think Medusa has a little bit on flash gordon personaly better sounds and better ruleset. Just a bit more harder to come by.

Not that FG isnt a good pin heres the new PF for mine. Still a very cool pin though014-960.JPG

Yes

Overall the bally cabinets are same by dimension but then the backboxes on xenon. SI and vector are unique to the machines for the backbox door instead of lift out glass.
another different is the lower cabinets will have different shooter rod locations between single and multilevel playfields. also each game has different playfield mounting techniques some use wood rails, some use metal brackets and others have a metal hinge pin style mounting.
Xenon and FG have 2 speaker hole for 2 smaller speakers instead of 1 larger speaker.
So the lowers are the same in a matter of speaking with different mounting for the playfields. sometimes the flipper button vary between the tradition buttons to the arcade video style buttons such as packman, spectrum, speakeasy and rapid fire cabinet LE machines but with a little work them bottoms can be converted to standard machines..

Flash gordon was the first bally machine to incorperate the backbox hinges and S&T board

Well its your machine to do what you want with but the rubbers are there to keep the wireform from getting beat up by absorbing the force of the ball.

The hits from the pop bumpers and when the ball is shot from the shooter also the rubbers provide as spacers for the gate.
Looking at your gate in your picture above it appears your post rubbers where gone for awhile seeing how bent up your ball gate is. If you didnt straighten up the wireform when you installed the Rubbers this would prolly explain why you're having problems.

Ive got the pretty green

The cliffys do look pretty nice and not a bad idea